A matter of taste …

… Reading the Writing on His Walls - WSJ.

One thing that’s clear is that the collection, like President Bush’s top-four list, reflects its owner’s taste, not that of a high-priced art consultant. Rather than “buying signatures” or hewing to the dictates of fashion, Mr. Albee collected artists who were respected but comparatively little known to the public at large. His top-dollar pieces include a pair of nudes by Milton Avery, who is greatly admired by connoisseurs but has never been popular. Instead of Jackson Pollock, he chose a painting by Lee Krasner, Pollock’s wife. He also owned three pieces each by Sidney Gordin, John McLaughlin, Richard Stankiewicz and Pavel Tchelitchew —none of them art-world matinée idols—and when he did buy works by famous artists like Marc Chagall or Wassily Kandinsky, they were stylistically uncharacteristic of the rest of their output.